82 SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS., AND THE 



The terms on which the commutation of labour for money- 

 rents was fixed are in general low. The summer labour- 

 rents, when valued in money, are generally put at twopence 

 a day, the winter at a penny. The harvest labour-rents 

 alone are higher than this rate, and it sometimes happens 

 that the common labour is commuted for payments even less 

 than these. These rents, however, small as they are singly, 

 formed in the aggregate a considerable item in the gross re- 

 ceipts of the estate or manor, and were, as we should say, all 

 profit, save a small percentage paid after the abandonment 

 of bailiff farming to the collector reddituum, who succeeded 

 the bailiff in the duty of receiving these contributions. For 

 some time after the Plague corn prices were high, and con- 

 sequently the loss involved in the higher price of labour was, 

 to some extent at least, compensated by the better terms 

 which producers could secure in the market. But when prices 

 began to fall, wages still remaining high, the landowner began 

 to exhibit symptoms of what in modern times is called agri- 

 cultural distress. A reduction of rents was threatened; in 

 many cases must have been actually effected. We see, though 

 at a date actually five years later than Tyler's insurrection, 

 that a reduction was allowed on the Merton College estates 

 at Letherhead and Wolford b , though, in both these cases, 

 the tenant was holding on lease, and therefore liable to the 

 full amount of the rent covenanted. 



We learn from the rolls of parliament that complaints 

 were made at the beginning of Richard's reign of the un- 

 willingness shewn, on the part of the customary tenants, 

 towards acceding to the claims of service made by the lords. 

 Service, in feudal language, is a very wide word, implying, 

 as is well known, not only what is understood by the term 

 at present, but also attendance at the lord's court, with the 

 payment of the sums which custom had enforced on such 

 occasions as court-days. What if an attempt had been gene- 

 rally made to set aside the pecuniary commutation, now so 



b ii. 608. i. 



